When I cook, I make all sorts of substitutions according to what I actually have in my fridge and pantry. Instead of true split channa (mini-chickpeas), I used yellow split peas. The two are pretty interchangeable and the substitution is well-known for Indian cooks living in North America. For the swiss chard, I used beet greens. You'll notice that except for size, beet greens look incredibly similar to swiss chard. It's because they're two varieties of the same species. One was bred for the bulbs, the other for the leaves.

I cut the beet bulbs off and stored them away for roasted root veggies on another day.

I used to throw chard stems away, but these days I dice and add them in with the leaves. They impart a slightly sweet, beet flavor and reddish tone to a dish.

The fried spice topping (aka tarka/chaunk/tempering) was a bit more red than usual due to a large amount of coursely ground red chili flakes.